History of Haiti

The recorded history of Haiti began on 4 December 1492 when the European navigator Christopher Columbus happened upon a large island in the region of the western Atlantic Ocean that later came to be known as the Caribbean. It was inhabited by the Taíno, an Arawakan people, who variously called their island Ayiti, Bohio, or Kiskeya (Quisqueya). Columbus promptly claimed the island for the Spanish Crown, naming it La Isla Española ("the Spanish Island"), later Latinized to Hispaniola.

Successive waves of Arawak migrants, moving northward from the Orinoco delta in South America, settled the islands of the Caribbean. Around AD 600, the Taíno Indians, an Arawak culture, arrived on the island, displacing the previous inhabitants. They were organized into cacicazgos (chiefdoms), each led by a cacique (chief).

The Taíno people called the island Quisqueya (mother of all lands) and Ayiti (high grounds, or sacred land). At the time of Columbus's arrival in 1492, the island's territory consisted of five chiefdoms: Marién, Maguá, Maguana, Jaragua, and Higüey. Two of these chiefdoms, Marien and Jaragua, were on the territory of present-day Haiti. Guacanagarix, who ruled Marien from his capital El Guarico near present-day Cap-Haïtien, met Columbus and gave him permission to construct La Navidad. Jaragua was the largest caique on the island and ruled by Bohechío and his sister Anacaona, who ruled from its capital Yaguana near present-day Léogâne, and later came into conflict with the Spanish.

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